There’s increasing talk of punting some of the toughest issues to the congressional committees charged with doing this job in the first place. That could mean giving the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance panels an order to come up with a specific amount of savings and a broad directive to rewrite the Tax Code.

This potential abdication of power from a special committee that was granted sweeping authority to tackle the staggering deficit shows just how badly gridlocked Congress remains.

To some, it sounds like the supercommittee is trying to figure out how to maximize political cover if it fails — a far cry from the mandate to achieve major deficit reductions where the rest of Congress has fallen short.

“The purpose of the supercommittee was to avoid that from happening — and even they’re doing it,” said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). “There’s no way around it: We have some important decisions to make for the future of this country, and that’s what people sent us here to do. That’s what we get paid to do, that’s what people voted for us to do. That’s our job, we need to do our job.”

Democrats say they’d need real buy-in to push the process into next year – perhaps revenues on the front end and a trigger mechanism. And it was unfeasible to think tax reform could be done during the supercommittee’s tight three-month timeframe, some participants say.

Nonetheless, the punt formation may be in place by Thanksgiving — if the panel can even reach a deal.

Under one scenario: The supercommittee could lay out a dollar figure for savings under tax reform but leave the specifics — the hardest part — to the regular committees. If the House and Senate committees fail to come to agreement, there could be automatic cuts to federal programs or potentially increases in revenue. Democrats said it would be in Republicans’ interest to raise revenue from tax reform to avoid the expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts at the end of 2012.

But there are even major differences on how they would go about this. Differences range from how much revenue should come as a result of these tax changes, the parameters for structuring a future overhaul, how the committees should handle entitlements like Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid, whether tax rates on capital gains and ordinary income should be raised — and how to make sure the committees don’t kick the can down the road themselves.

Asked if he’d be OK if the supercommittee deferred details on taxes until a later date, Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska) said: “No. I think we’re ready; let’s get going here.”

As they returned to Washington after a weeklong recess, House Republicans didn’t hold back their opposition to kicking the process to an election year in which they’ll be trying to keep their majority in the House and trying to defeat President Barack Obama.